CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
Deadline
8 January 2021
The call addresses individuals and groups, academics, practitioners and students who
work in the spatial disciplines. It is open – but not limited to – architects, urbanists, artists and scientists, as much
as it is to scholars from the humanities who investigate the present and (possible) future of urban processes, conditions
and challenges through theoretical, practical and artistic reflection.
We welcome
all types of contributions, ranging from academic traditions to emerging approaches that emphasize a multiplicity of formats,
from the traditional essay and scholarly article to discursive, documentary, cartographic, photographic and cinematic investigations.
Abstract
submissions shall be directed at three main areas of approaches:
Entangled Spatial Qualities / Processes of
Dialogue and Collaboration / Challenging Methods of Articulation. From the submissions, 12 entries across all these areas
of approaches will be selected by the editors for further development. Full entries will be peer reviewed and feedback and
recommendations will be provided for either publishing in issue#0 of the journal or publishing in the framework of the discursive
online platform.
Entangled Spatial Qualities The journal addresses investigations that put an emphasis on exploring
phenomena of the entangled qualities of the natural, artificial, lived and built environment, as much as that of social formations.
We are particularly interested in radical shifts in perspective in both temporal and spatial scales that move beyond established
concepts and assumed models of reality. Accordingly, this section aims at questions that evolve around new understandings
of known problematics as much
as the identification of spaces and situations that are yet to be declared as terrain
for architectural thought.
Processes of Dialogue and Collaboration The journal – as it is embedded in its
title – will emphasize the notion of the fora in all their diverse potentialities. We are interested in dialogical, collaborative
and experimental approaches that may be manifested in the form of processual contributions by authors from diverse disciplines
and backgrounds. These may be conversations, reflections and provocations on the urban, in dialogue with or from within fields
such as anthropology, technological and cultural studies, visual culture, ecology, geo-humanities and sociology, and from
places and regions that are geographically and culturally underrepresented in urban discourse.
Challenging
the Methods The journal will place special emphasis on contributions that present new approaches and methodologies for inquiry,
identification, description, analysis, intervention and theorisation of different urban realities. We are interested in gathering
and presenting relevant essays that contribute to innovations in tools and methods that also imply a projective character,
making possible a renewed and non-linear relation with the temporal dimension of the urban. We are interested as well in those
investigations that pay attention to innovative formats of research, transformation and understanding, integrating them from
early stages.
Specification of Abstracts
Abstracts should have a length
of 400 words and a maximum of two images, and include the affiliation/incorporation of disciplinary fields, a declaration
of its area of investigation, and the envisioned format of the later full contribution.
Specification
of Full Contributions
Emphasizing the open format essay, full contributions can follow a literary or
non-literary
path:
Scholarly contributions must have a length of between 1500–2500 words (excluding
captions, footnotes
and references)
Non-scholarly contributions must be accompanied by a text no longer
than 800 words (excluding
captions, footnotes and references).
SUBMISSION
Submissions & Schedule
8
January 2021: Submission of abstracts: 400 words + max 2 images
18 January 2021: Notification from editors of acceptance/rejection
1
March 2021: Submissions of full essays
31 March 2021: Receival of feedback from peer reviewers
19 April
2021: Submissions of final essays
Eligibility
Any individual, group or collective from any
discipline or combination of disciplines is eligible to submit an abstract for forA. Given the journal‘s multidialogical format,
we are interested in publishing works carried out by groups made up of individuals or collectives from different fields of
study, exploring innovative collaborative formats.
Selection Process & Criteria for Evaluation
For
the full-length essays, we encourage and expect a broad spectrum of essay formats. Nevertheless, the ones submitted in the
format of a classical scholarly essay and the written parts of the rest of the formats should follow The Chicago Manual of
Style. Essays submitted for consideration must not have been previously published, or under consideration for publication
in another journal or any other medium. If any kind of publication or dissemination has occurred, or if the work has been
presented through a different medium, the essay should pay due credit to the original source.
To be finally published,
full essays will have received a positive peer review whereas great care is taken to distribute each contribution to at least
two peer reviewers with corresponding expertise. In order to be admitted to the review process, the work must have been sent
within the given set period.
Positive or negative evaluations must be accompanied by a justification included in
a report, which will remain strictly confidential. Assessment reports must not bear any signature or other identifying mark
of the evaluator. The report will establish which of the following situations apply to the essay: publishable, publishable
with changes, unpublishable. In the second of these scenarios, possible improvements to be made
by the author shall
be included in the review. If the amendments requested for a contribution are substantial, this may be sent back to the evaluator
for a second review.
Peer reviewers will give feedback for a final iteration with respect to either allocating the
entry to the issue #0 of the journal or publishing it on the discursive online platform.
The final submitted essays
will be accompanied by images in a digital format of a sufficient quality (minimum 300 dpi). It is the author‘s responsibility
to supply accurate information for the credits and captions and to contact the author in order to confirm image ownership
and secure publication rights.
Criteria of Evaluation
The criteria for the evaluation of
the abstracts and final essays will be based on multiple parameters, including: the relevance of the topic in relation to
the open call, the clarity and interest of the topic, the methodological rigor and newness, the originality, depth and quality
of the work, the interest of the collaboration model among the authors, the format chosen in relation to the topic addressed,
and finally, the intellectual contribution to the field of urban studies.
